Kings and Queens
by wouldtheywriteasongforyou
Summary: A collection of drabbles and one-shots set in the Golden Trio era for various HPFC challenges / contests.
1. table of contents

**Author's Note:  
Disclaimer: Come and take a walk on the wild side.  
**

Kings and Queens: A collection of drabbles and one-shots set in the Golden Trio era for various HPFC challenges / contests. Genre: Poetry, Romance, Tragedy, Angst, Drama, Adventure. Rating: K-T (will give warnings if a chapter is M).

This chapter is where all of my contest / challenge notes for each entry will be.

* * *

**Table of Contents**

Pairings (chapter #):

Neville&Luna. (1)  
Bellatrix. (2)  
GoldenTrio. (3)  
Harry&Ginny. (4)  
Harry&Lily&James. (5)  
Tonks&Remus. (6)  
Cho&Cedric. (7)

**Master List**

1. Defying Gravity - Written for the HPFC Cinema Competition "Titanic"; The Disney Movie Plotline Competition "Pocahontas"; Duct Tape Competition "Paint Splatters"; Your Favourite Hogwarts House Bootcamp [GRYFFINDOR] "30. Take me with you"; Star Challenge "Alpha Centauri"; Gemstone Competition "moonstone"; Acrostic-y Competition "The Boy Who Live_**d**_" [decoy, Don't Let Me Stop You - Kelly Clarkson]. _Defying Gravity_ is one of the (best) songs in the musical WICKED. 9 Feb 2014. Word Count: 1,301.

2. Vagabond - Written for the HPFC Acrostic-y Competition "The Boy Who Li**_v_**ed" (viva la vida); Star Challenge "Shaula"; Monthly Poetry Flood Competition "Feb 2014: hope". 10 Feb 2014. Word Count: 362

3. Vile Vials - Written for the Journey Through Hogwarts Challenge "Part One: Diagon Alley (i. Slug and Jiggers Apothecary)" [waiting, potion, and difficult]; Twelve Days of Christmas Challenge "2. canon"; Acrostic-y Competition "The **_V_**anishing Glass"; Gemstone Competition "aquamarine"; Your Favourite Hogwarts House Bootcamp [GRYFFINDOR] "32. shiver". 13 Feb 2014. Word Count: 771

4. Break me like a promise - Written for the HPFC Monthly Het-tastic Drabble-athon "63. Promise". 21 Feb 2014. Word Count: 198

5. Car Crash Kid - Written for the Monthly Het-tastic Drabble-athon "42. Crash"; Duct Tape Competition "Flames". 22 Feb 2014. Word Count: 451

6. Lunar Cycle - Written for the Monthly Het-tastic Drabble-athon "45. Moonlight"; Off the Block Competition "IM - Easy". 23 Feb 2014. Word Count: 194.

7. Hail, Rain, or Shine - Written for the Monthly Het-tastic Drabble-athon "21. heart"; Acrostic-y Competition "The Vanis**_h_**ing Glass". 24 Feb 2014. Word Count: 311.


	2. neville&luna: Defying Gravity

**Author's Note:  
Disclaimer: Did this ever happen in canon?**

9 Feb 2014. Word Count: 1,301

**"I need you to trust me."**

* * *

**Defying Gravity**

[-]

"Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith first. The trust part comes later."  
~ Man of Steel (2013)

[-]

"Don't give up. Everyone deserves the chance to fly."

She stares back at him with wide waning gibbous eyes. Her soul has been fractured and shattered numerous times tonight, and she just wants the pain to stop. Her Ravenclaw mind is still sharp and sparkling – like a diamond in the moonlight, she thinks poetically – but her body is screaming from exhaustion and she is _this_ close to giving up. Death reaches out to her kindly. His black spindly fingers protruding from his hood of shadows wiggle invitingly, gracefully.

But from her other side, Life glitters like starlight with Neville's every breath. "Luna. You jump, I jump remember?" His voice echoes a promise made between a bird and a lion a lifetime ago. Hazel eyes stare into her blue ones, and for a second she thinks that life is worth living if she could only be oblivious and drown herself in his promises. "I'll be with you the entire time."

The other members of Dumbledore's Army had scattered long ago in the twisting, collapsing Daedalus maze. It is now just Luna and him left to protect each other. They stand in front of a door – an escape – that leads to nowhere that they know of and everywhere they can imagine. Over the din of falling prophecies, she can hear a muffled whispering from the other side. It terrifies her – she is so sure that it is Death's voice she is hearing.

"He's coming," she whispers. Now that Death is standing close enough to touch in front of her, she finds herself afraid and terrified of dying.

"Death Eater? Where?"

Neville is so brave, focused, and loyal. He's choosing to save her instead of protecting himself - he is not hesitant about the door behind them like she is, but he's opting to stay and protect her. She closes her eyes in defeat when this realisation hits her. Neville isn't the type to play by the rules of someone else's game or accept the limits others give him - and now, he's chosen to sacrifice himself alongside her.

The Department of Mysteries prophecy Luna had heard about herself echoes through her mind: _Daughter of the moon, today will be the day / you face the eater of Death at his door / a choice of the cruellest kind must be made / and the life of a friend will be no more. _Already half of the prophecy has come true, Luna realises. She and Neville are at Death's door, and now it seems to be that their demise is inevitable.

Something changes and is not the same within her once her mind focuses on these thoughts. Too long she has been afraid of losing love, but she realises with a sad bitter acceptance that she's already lost her love to this bravely mortal boy. Some things prophesised cannot be altered, but until she tries to deviate from her pre-destined path, she'll never know if that is the absolute truth or not.

"Boo," a thin cackling voice laughs mirthlessly in response to Neville's questions. As the Death Eater materialises from its inky black vapour, Neville immediately steps in front of Luna so that he is shielding her and the door, their only means of escape out of the doomed labyrinth that is the Department of Mysteries.

The Death Eater's mask is slightly askew – not enough that the Fifth Year and Fourth Year can identify him, but enough for Luna to note with a grim satisfaction that it was the one she had Stupefied earlier when Dumbledore's Army had first separated. Evidently the Death Eater also remembers Luna, for his face twists into a ghastly sneer and he points his wand directly at her.

"I've got two of 'em!" the Death Eater shouts gleefully to alert his comrades, his nails-on-a-chalkboard voice reverberating and causing another deluge of broken prophecies as the glass orbs break.

"I can't turn away without knowing you'll be all right," Neville tells her quietly, not wanting to turn his back on the approaching Death Eater but also not wanting to lose eye contact with Luna.

Her wand had been Expelliarmus-ed away from her during her haste to avoid the shattering prophecies. She's defenceless and completely vulnerable; her decision shouldn't be so hard to make. Stay and die at the hands of this Death Eater or jump then fall into whatever is on the other side of the door? Luna is terrified and the whispering voices of death on the other side of the door get louder as she makes her decision.

"You promised," she says in a quivering voice. "Don't let me stop you from doing what you want to do. Take me with you, Neville. Say we'll be together and that everything will be okay. That's all I want." There is a very real chance that neither of them will survive even if they escape the Death Eater by falling through the door.

"I need you to trust me."

She trusts him with her life, and now it is time to put that trust to the test. Her life or his? Only one of them will survive tonight, according to her prophecy. Knowing Neville, he'll act as a decoy by playing martyr and fending off the Death Eater as best he can while she escapes through the door - but that's not how she wants this story to end.

The Death Eater still displays some lingering side effects of the Stupefy spell. His curses are off-target and his reflexes aren't the best, but still, he is a lethal opponent and out for blood. He believes he has the advantage, though, so he is toying with Neville and Luna. He doesn't seem to have seen the door they are standing in front of - if he did notice its existence, surely they would have been _Avada_'d by now.

Neville's left side is closest to the Death Eater since he is half-turned towards their attacker; however, Neville also keeps some of his focus on Luna and her next move. He has put himself in harm's way to distract the Death Eater from her, allowing Luna the option to escape through the door. Though Neville has a wand and could attack the Death Eater, doing so would be guaranteeing their death since the Death Eater's comrades will be answering their ally's gleeful shout sometime soon.

The Death Eater is growing annoyed by this slow-paced game of cat-and-mouse. He raises his wand and casts a Cruciatus Curse at her that Neville barely manages to deflect.

Luna grabs Neville's hand and the knob to the trapdoor. She has to be brave (like Neville, her fearless lion) and make the final decision soon. The time for second-guessing has already passed - now it's time for her to trust her instincts, close her eyes, and leap. "Kiss me goodbye," she whispers to him. She hopes she doesn't live to regret her last words, and she hopes that she is happy in the end now that she is choosing this. But Neville doesn't seem to hear her and the Death Eater is mouthing the Killing Curse and _OhMerlinshedoesnotwanttodieRowenanonotyet -_

"_Avada Kedav –_"

But the spell is cut short and misses them as they make the split-second decision to launch themselves into the unknown on the other side of the door. They are free-falling, defying gravity with every breath they take, and no Wizard that there is or was is ever going to bring them down again. They're hurtling headfirst fearless towards the Whispering Veil and the voices of Death, but there is no fight that they cannot win. Together, they are the greatest team that has ever been. Together, they are unlimited.

Nothing can ever bring them down, for Luna and Neville are flying high, defying gravity, forever.

[-]


	3. bellatrix: Vagabond

**Author's Note:  
Disclaimer: If I were JK, I'd be living like a queen in London.**

10 February 2014. Word Count: 362

**All she wanted was revenge.**

* * *

**Vagabond**

[-]

Victory  
had once been hers.  
Together,  
she and the Dark Lord had ruled the wizarding world  
and their terrible teamwork of two  
infected magical minds as they preached Pureblood ideology.  
She was crowned the Black Queen of a decaying planet  
and wielded her flexible wand like it was her  
ace of spades.

But then on the thirty-first of October,  
her Lord had been dethroned,  
and suddenly  
the tide had turned and hauled her away to  
Azkaban  
before she had a chance to identify who her friends and enemies were.

(Oh, who was she kidding?  
Bellatrix Black Lestrange did not have any _friends_.)

She was a black widow  
who wove a sticky spider web of lies.  
Her victims were careless casualties,  
mindless flies who had the misfortune to catch her fancy.  
And she was the insane girl with blood on her lips and listening to the soundtrack of screams  
which was just  
the way  
she liked  
it.

Now she was a caged bird with no room to fly  
fed to the Dementors  
one happy memory at a time.  
She relished freedom and independence  
but that itsy-bitsy Potter baby had taken it away from her.

Once, she had been a monarch with wings that shadowed the sky  
a predator to be feared  
with eagle-eyes of a selective serial killer.

(Look at her now,  
sleeping alone in a cold dank prison cell  
paying the price for the world that she used to own.)

(Look at her now,  
cast away like a piece of forgotten rubbish  
homeless and wandering  
venting about the glory days  
searching for that skeletal-less soul she calls Master.)

A fatal bitterness poisoned her heart with rusty nails  
it oxidised her blood and congealed her emotions  
until all she wanted was  
revenge.

She would wait  
forever, if she must  
she would wait hopefully for the rise of her Master  
because that day would come again, she was sure of it.  
And then the world would be hers again.

(Never mind that the world had changed since she'd been locked up.  
Never mind that the peasants she had commanded now longed to see her head on a pike.)

Once a queen, always a queen.

[-]


	4. hermione&ron&harry: Vile Vials

**Author's Note:  
Disclaimer: Chamber of Secrets.  
**

13 Feb 2014. Word Count: 772

**Detective Sherlock Potter and his sidekick Ron Watson would have to keep waiting in suspense for a little while longer, then.**

* * *

**Vile Vials**

[-]

Vacuous boys were all that seemed to clutter the hallways of Hogwarts. Hermione huffed in annoyance as she went to the library to research the Polyjuice Potion. Honestly, it was as if there was nothing but dandelion fluff inside of Harry's and Ron's heads! They could speculate and hypothesise and jump to conclusions all that they wanted to but they never made the executive decisions. Oh no, it was always _her_ job to be the intelligent one in their group of three.

_But I'm allergic to the library_, Ron had once said.

She rolled her eyes and browsed through the apothecary books. There was nothing on the Polyjuice Potion in any of them. Slowly, her eyes flicked over to the Restricted Section. Could it be in there . . . ?

[-]

A few days later, Hermione Granger was back in the library. She walked up to Madam Pince's desk and gave the librarian a slip of parchment. Madam Pince eyed Hermione carefully but granted her access to the Restricted Section nonetheless.

Hermione breathed out a sigh of relief. Really, she could not believe how smoothly everything was going according to her plan. First, she had Professor Lockhart sign a slip giving her permission to check out Moste Potente Potions for which she claimed that it had information on slow-acting venoms, a subject Professor Lockhart briefly touched upon in Gadding with Ghouls. Then, Madam Pince had actually believed her alibi, and now Hermione found herself amongst the deepest and darkest books that Hogwarts had to offer. The spooky and forbidden atmosphere of the Restricted Section made her shiver.

She left the Restricted Section as soon as she had located Moste Potente Potions. Hermione did not desire to be in that area of the library longer than she had to.

[-]

After flipping through a few gory pages, Hermione could understand why Moste Potente Potions was not suitable for the under-aged witch or wizard. The pictures accompanying the potions were positively terrifying, and the recipes were extremely difficult. She read with wide eyes about the defects and symptoms that may occur to the person who ingested the potion if the concoction was brewed incorrectly.

She needed to focus, though, and not be scarred for life by these gruesome potions. She flipped to the page where the recipe for Polyjuice Potion was. Skimming over the ingredients list, she noted that it required very specific ingredients that surely only Professor Snape had in his private stores. Hermione also saw that the brewing time for the potion was a month.

Detective Sherlock Potter and his sidekick Ron Watson would have to keep waiting in suspense for a little while longer, then.

[-]

Stealing the necessary ingredients from Professor Snape's personal stores was a difficult feat, but somehow they managed to do it. The boys brought their stash into Moaning Myrtle's bathroom which was the place they had all agreed was secret enough to brew the Polyjuice Potion without getting caught. Harry and Ron diligently dropped the lacewing flies into the cauldron when Hermione told them to. She felt like she was a little kid again playing with a chemistry set (or perhaps a drug dealer in a meth lab) but she knew that this was much more serious than either. After all, this was _magic_.

"We still need a bit of the people you're changing into," she stated. Hermione then proceeded to detail her plan on how to get Crabbe's and Goyle's hair by using cakes filled with a Sleeping Draught. "I've already got mine." She pulled a vial out of her pocket that contained a hair she had plucked from Millicent Bullstrode's robes.

Harry and Ron looked doubtfully at each other. Ron muttered, "Have you ever heard of a plan where so many things could go wrong?"

[-]

It was time. The potion bubbling intermittently in the cauldron was filled with sludgy dark matter. It smelled positively vile – Hermione was sure it wouldn't taste any better – but it would have to do.

"I'm sure I've done everything right," she said anxiously as she checked the Polyjuice Potion recipe one more time. "It looks like the book says it should . . . once we've drunk it, we'll have exactly an hour before we change back into ourselves." She ladled out the potion into three separate vials and added a hair to each. Each glass had a violent reaction when the hairs were added and turned unpleasant colours.

The three split up into different stalls and waited with bated breath before sipping their potions. "Ready?" Harry asked.

"Ready," Ron and Hermione responded.

"One – two – three – "

[-]


	5. harry&ginny: Break me like a promise

**Author's Note:  
Disclaimer: muggle!AU.  
**

21 Feb 2014. Word Count: 198

**"I'll come back," he promised. **

* * *

**Break me like a promise**

[-]

"I love you," Harry had said. "Nothing will change."

Of course, it wasn't true: they were two foolishly naive not-quite-yet adults living in a war zone. The sky was endlessly burning and the bomb sirens wailed almost as much as the families did who were torn apart by the death of their loved ones.

"I have to go fight," Harry explained, his eyes begging for her to understand that his love for his country was greater than his love for her.

"You can't," she pleaded. Ginny wanted to tell her boyfriend exactly why he couldn't leave their safe haven - didn't he realise he was going to have to physically murder someone before his inevitable death or feel the pain of his soul ripped apart by an unforgivable act of torture? - but the words were a tangled anthem of regret in her throat.

"I'll come back," he promised, his voice ringing with a brave soldier's confidence.

Ginny was now bitterly staring at the wooden box with the Union Jack draped over it. Harry had come back just as he had vowed, but the dead boy in the box with the silenced heart would never love her again.

[-]


	6. harry&lily&james: Car Crash Kid

**Author's Note:  
Disclaimer: muggle!AU. Let's pretend Harry is a toddler in this HP scene.**

Written for the HPFC Monthly Het-tastic Drabble-athon "42. Crash"; Duct Tape Competition "Flames"

22 February 2014. Word Count: 451

**You want to forget these details but you can't. **

* * *

**Car Crash Kid**

[-]

You try to remember  
but you can't.  
And you don't know if that is a good thing or not.

You would like to hear your mother's voice  
an echo of a song you'll never tire of  
but then you'd have to remember her final solo  
and the last breath she took to prepare herself for the denouement.

You would like to feel your father's heartbeat  
the steady soldier's rhythm  
but then you'd have to remember his final stand  
and the emptying cavity in his chest when his life bled out.

(You do remember some things:  
the smell of the rain  
the squealing of tires  
her scream  
shattered windows.  
You want to forget these details  
but  
you can't.)

In the midst of it all, there was a green light.  
It hung suspended at the bottom of red and yellow  
– _go! _–  
(you think that was your father's last word)

It all happened so quickly  
the physically jarring shove from one reality to another  
and the car rose  
flying up to the moon  
and then fell back to Earth  
a flaming trodden piece of aluminium  
_make a wish_, you recall thinking  
because even then you had enough time to realise  
how close Death was to your crushable bubble shield of metal.

And the glass rained down  
a sparkling confetti storm of dusted powder and cutthroat shards  
as the car slid and flipped in a too-perfect ballet dance.  
Your father was silently slumped over the steering wheel  
a watercolour of red bleeding through his shirt.  
The seatbelt imprisoned you in the backseat  
ensnaring you the more you struggled to break free.

"Harry? Harry? Baby, are you all right?"

(You do remember some things:  
the scarlet letters branded across your father's chest  
the burning rubber of tires  
her hoarse promises fading with every painful breath  
glass diamonds embedded into your skin.  
You want to forget these details  
but  
you can't.)

There was a fire branding itself on your forehead,  
etching in a throbbing zigzag pattern,  
pulsing in a steady countdown  
that marked your last moments with your broken family.

"We've been hit," your mother explained in a deceptively calm tone. "A drunk driver  
ran a red light and hit us head-on at the intersection.  
But we're going to be all right.  
Do you hear me, Harry?  
We are going to be

all

right.

Mummy loves you, Harry.  
Mummy loves you so much."

She spoke disjointedly  
broken  
and you don't know why  
but you thought she was wrong  
so. very. wrong.

There was a distant wailing of sirens  
or perhaps that was your voice crying out helplessly.

You try to remember  
but you can't.  
And you don't know if that is a good thing or not.

[-]


	7. tonks&remus: Lunar Cycle

**Author's Note:  
Disclaimer: Tonks-centric.**

23 February 2014. Word Count: 194

**But I want you, still.  
**

* * *

**Lunar Cycle  
**

[-]

One day, I will be able to look at the moon and not miss you. I'll see it as a cratered physical mass of lunar rock and nothing more. On the nights of the full moon, I won't lie paralysed in my bed listening for the howls of wolves and wondering if one of their anguished voices is yours. The silver moonlight will have lost its torturous significance and I'll be freed from your fears.

My world won't revolve around you anymore. My months won't be numbered in twenty-eight cyclical days. The tides will stop pushing and pulling me faintly closer to you. Gravity will prevent things from falling and the stars will be realigned.

And maybe, just maybe, I can be all right again.

But until that day comes, I'll be defined as the girl who loved a werewolf unconditionally. I'll be known as the one who always loved you – even more so when you couldn't seem to love yourself.

You're out there somewhere, distantly nearby and surrounded in a sea of loneliness. But I want you, still. All the parts of you. Even the parts of you that have forgotten about me.

[-]


	8. cho&cedric: Hail, Rain, or Shine

**Author's Note:  
Disclaimer: Cho-centric.**

24 February 2014. Word Count: 311

**I love him too much.  
**

* * *

**Hail, Rain, or Shine  
**

[-]

Her heart whispers to her mind but she silences her fragile over-worked organ. _I'm bleeding endlessly_, her heart warns. _Won't you find Love and make me whole again?_

_Shh_, Cho quiets her helpless heart. _You'll be fine_. She looks into a cracked bathroom mirror in a vacant bathroom on the third floor and uses red lipstick to paint an artificial smile onto her face.

_Where is he?_ her heart demands. _Why has he been absent from your life for so long now?_

Cho cannot scrub away the yesterdays caked onto her tired, lifeless eyes. She tries to erase the promise burning on her left ring finger but Cedric's assurances echo like a haunting melody in her head. He had believed in their future – the grand white wedding, a house bursting with life, a family whose size would rival the Weasley's – but those dreams would never come true for them. Cho remembers Cedric's pledge to love her no matter the stormy weather the future may bring them, but as she stands on the other side of time she knows that he never equated his premature death into their plans.

She straightens the shirt collar loosely noosed around her neck and tugs at the denim smothering her legs. Her heart suspects the undeniable truth she is neglecting to mention but Cho does not have the strength to deliberately confirm its worst fears.

_I love him too much_, her morose brittle heart says.

_I know_, Cho responds. She finishes her transformation from ghastly to ghostly and dries the salt from her eyelashes. _He loved you unconditionally, too._

Her heartbeat staggers at the slip of information. _Loved_? it repeats.

_Nononono, _Cho tries to correct her train of thought but the damage has been done. _He loves you still_.

But her heart is done with being lied to and so it simply stops.

Just.

Like.

That.

[-]


End file.
